


Stillness

by zesulin



Category: Vikings (TV), Vikings - Fandom
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, athelstan's feelings, lots of metaphor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-30
Updated: 2013-04-30
Packaged: 2017-12-10 00:20:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/779643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zesulin/pseuds/zesulin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her soul is gone, she is gone. And it hurts him more than any wound.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stillness

It hits him like a jab to the stomach when he sees Gyda laying still like that. No little girl, no matter how sick, should be breathing that quietly. Especially with her eyes open.   
Something is wrong, so, so, wrong. He can feel it settle in his stomach. The fist that hit him upon realization becomes the hilt of a sword. His throat is already closing up as he scrambles up, tripping over the dirty, white chemise he had been wearing for the past three days. It smells sickly sweet, like illness and sweat. Then again, the entire bloody room does.   
When he's climbed over the sleeping (or dead) body beside him, over to his dearest little Gyda, the hilt is suddenly a knife that's twisting in his guts. His hands tremble as he reaches for her, shaking too-thin shoulders that only slump in his hands.  
"Gyda. Gyda! GYDA!"   
She is still as a statue, dark eyes lacking any of their former luster. They are more like smooth stones than they are eyes. No.   
"Gyda, please. Now is not the time for games!" He sounds increasingly hysterical.  
"You're scaring me. Don't do that. Come on." He wills her to breathe, for a smile to spread across her pale, cracked lips. He waits for a laugh, for her to tease him for being such a worrywart. But a darker, more rational part of him says she will not. He has seen death like this before, back at the monastery, when the oldest brothers would die in the night. But never was it someone he held this kind of love for.   
"Please, God, please." he begs hopelessly, and there are tears burning in his eyes-- they are liquid fire, and they scald his cheeks.   
The metaphorical knife is torn from his stomach and blood pours out in the form of deep sorrow, heartbreak, were he honest with himself. She was his one true friend, the one who he could talk to without fear, because they held a bond like he had never had before. It had not been romantic, but it had not been familial, either. However, whatever it was, it was gone now, washed away like stones on the sea, never to be seen or felt again. And in its place was a hole. Time would heal it, perhaps, but never truly. The memory would remain.   
There is a smooth, cool hand on his back. Lagertha has tears in her blue-as-ocean eyes, her hands trembling as she kneels. She reaches out, and closes the girl's eyes. And she weeps silently. Athelstan figures it's harder for her. She has lost two children in such a short amount of time. And yet here she is, helping him like this, holding his shoulders like a child's in this moment that suddenly feels terribly surreal. His stomach aches terribly from the sobs that shake his body, thinner now since he came down with the fever. He hasn't eaten in two days. For the moment, it's like he's fallen into a strange dream, that he could wake up at any second. Gyda can't be really lying there, stiff and cold, when she was out shopping with him just the other afternoon. They were laughing together, fingers brushing as they walked down the narrow market streets. That afternoon feels like centuries ago already. They will never be like that again. He, too, reaches out, fingers brushing her still lips (ones that had never had the chance to be kissed, he reminds himself), and he breaks in the arms of the shield-maiden.   
The wound bleeds steadily.


End file.
